AQA A-LEVEL HISTORY 7042/2Q Component 2Q The American Dream: reality and illusion, 1945–1980|MERGED||GRADED A+|

Section A Answer Question 01. Source A From a report of a speech by Jesse Jackson to the Republican Party, in the New York Times, 21 January 1978. This left-leaning newspaper is renowned for high journalistic standards. ‘Blacks will vote Republican if Republicans will go after their votes and look after their interests’, the Rev Jesse L Jackson told the Republican National Committee today. A standing ovation greeted the message from the Chicago‐based civil rights leader, who had been invited before the committee as part of an effort by the Republican national chairman, Bill Brock, to reverse the devastating decline in the party’s share of black votes. Mr Jackson preached self‐help and warned of moral decay, even as he invited Republican competition for black votes and argued that blacks should register as Republicans so they could, ‘broaden our political options and avoid being taken for granted by the Democrats’. Mr Jackson said that the Republicans had lost some black votes in 1976, perhaps enough to cost them the election, ‘because they simply did not go after them’. He warned, ‘The Republican Party needs black people if it is to ever compete for national office – or, in fact, to keep it from becoming an extinct party’. 5 10 Source B From an article in the Christian Science Monitor, 26 August 1980. This newspaper had a reputation for being non-religious and non-sensationalist. It won five Pulitzer prizes between 1945 and 1980. It is extraordinary that the Ku Klux Klan has resurfaced to the point that America’s main political parties have had to reject it. Klan membership has risen from 6 500 to 10 500 in the past five years and, in June, over 32 300 southern Californians voted for Klansman, Tom Metzger, who campaigned to aid ‘white working people’, as the Democratic nominee for the 43rd congressional district. Local Democrat officials renounced their support saying, ‘he is against everything the Democratic Party stands for’. Next it was the Republicans’ turn to try to avoid guilt by association with the Klan. The problem arose when the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, the biggest, most militant Klan group, endorsed Ronald Reagan declaring ‘the Republican platform reads as if it were written by a Klansman’, citing such points as Reagan’s opposition to gun control, generous welfare payments and to ‘forced busing’. Mr Reagan rejected the endorsement, saying, ‘I have no tolerance for the Klan and I want nothing to do with it’. 5 10 3 IB/M/Jun23/7042/2Q Turn over ► Source C From a US Population Bulletin on 1980, published by a commercial non-profit organisation, December 1982. This academic organisation specialised in compiling statistics on the health and structure of populations. Blacks numbered 11.7% of the total population in 1980, with 85% residing in urban areas compared to 71% of whites. Some suburbanization is occurring among blacks but the majority remain segregated in cities. In the 1970s, more blacks moved into the South than moved out in a reversal of the historic pattern. Blacks have shared the baby boom but teenage and out-of-wedlock fertility, as well as overall fertility, remain much higher than for whites. Black infant mortality is still double that of whites and life expectancy is 6 years shorter. Divorce and separation have risen faster for blacks than whites. Many of these gaps are related to blacks’ continuing socio-economic disadvantages: average family income is 56% that of whites; the poverty rate is 3.5 times higher; unemployment is twice as high. Occupational status has improved for blacks and their educational attainment is now close to that of whites, but these gains may be slowed and income differentials unimproved if the current administration’s reversal of socio-economic policy remains unchanged. 5 10 0 1 With reference to these sources and your understanding of the historical context, assess the value of these three sources to an historian studying the position of African-Americans in US society in the years 1978 to 198